


secret for the mad

by riverblujay



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Alex Alvarez Centric, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, One Reference to Suicidal Thoughts, Post-Season/Series 03, Self-Harm, Therapy, graphic descriptions of self harm, mostly unedited, or at least not sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 13:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverblujay/pseuds/riverblujay
Summary: "He’s felt… off, lately.Sometimes his energy hits rock bottom. Or he feels overwhelmingly sad, but in a weird way, because he’s not sad about anything in particular. It’s sadness that feels like weight. As if he’ll never be on even footing with everyone else, because there’s the burden on his shoulders that no one else really has, so he can never hope to catch up."or: alex and depression





	secret for the mad

**Author's Note:**

> this gets pretty dark at some places- the self harm is a relatively large part of the plot, as is depression. like i put in the tags, the self harm also gets kinda graphic in a few sections. also: mentions of medications, discovery of self harm by a parent, vague descriptions of psychiatrist's office, therapy but its not very explicit, mostly mentioned.
> 
> let me know if there are other things that you think should be tagged. stay safe everyone!!
> 
> title is from dodie song of the same name

He’s felt… off, lately.

Sometimes his energy hits rock bottom. Or he feels overwhelmingly  _ sad _ , but in a weird way, because he’s not sad about anything in particular. It’s sadness that feels like weight. As if he’ll never be on even footing with everyone else, because there’s the burden on his shoulders that no one else really has, so he can never hope to catch up.

Alex hates it, but he’s not going to let anyone know about it.

At least he doesn’t (probably?) have anxiety, like Elena. Alex felt lost, the first time he saw her having an anxiety attack. The second time wasn’t much better, but he was the only one there and  _ someone _ had to help. 

But at the same time, Alex wonders what he would do to ground himself. Or how  _ mami _ or Elena or whoever would try to help. It was scary, watching from the outside, either not knowing how to help or not being able to really do anything besides be there. 

Elena described what it was like to him, once, when they were alone. After his date (and  _ Schneider, _ which.  _ Mami _ had said he handled it the right way. Still- and he wouldn’t dare admit it- he’s not the same, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be the same, and to be honest he’s not totally okay), his sister pulled him aside.

“Alex,” she had said, before going on to thank him. Alex tried to wave it off, but Elena wasn’t having it. There had been an awkward pause before he managed to ask her about it.

“Elena?” He tried, his voice a little thin. “What… what does it feel like?”

“An anxiety attack?”

Alex nodded.

“Well- it’s sort of like a spiral, I guess. Of your thoughts. And you imagine every worst case scenario, which is amplified by feeling like you can’t breathe, or clear your head. My heart usually feels like it’s going to beat so fast it’ll explode out of my chest. You start sweating- which feels really gross, by the way- and feel shaky all over. It-” she stopped. “It’s weird.”

He frowned. “Sounds scary.”

Elena shrugged. “Yeah. But it helps when someone else can try to talk you through it. I guess,” she mumbled the last part. The two of them sat there for awhile longer before Elena left for her own room.

_ Like a spiral _ , Alex thought. He wondered what his family would say about the spiral his thoughts occasionally took. The teenager threw his back downwards so that his body faced the ceiling. “Depression and anxiety,” he muttered so softly that he himself had barely heard the words. There were thoughts that tried to stem from that, but- it was impossible. Alex didn’t have anxiety, not really. It was impossible for him to have depression. So what if he had been feeling a little down (in a way that was almost…  _ more _ than just “down”) lately? That didn’t mean Alex had  _ depression _ . 

Suddenly he felt almost completely drained of energy. But that wasn’t that far out of the usual nowadays, honestly, so he just let himself lay on his bed until dinner.

  
  


\---

  
  


The truth was, Alex did get caught up in his own thoughts sometimes, a spiral of his own. One thought always led to another, but each thought was darker than the last. He had done more than one double take whenever the idea that he would be better off dead randomly went through his brain. 

Some days he didn’t feel real, much less grounded. On those days (or solid weeks, sometimes) he barely felt alive inside, and it was hard to really care about anything. Except pretending. He  _ had _ to pretend, keep acting like he was the same, as if he was fine, because Alex  _ needed _ to be fine.  _ Mami _ already had to help Elena with anxiety. Whatever weird thing this was, nobody needed to deal with it but Alex.

The thing with the knife was an accident. Really. (Okay, the start of it was.) Cooking with  _ abuelita _ was normal for Alex. He just happened to not be paying enough attention, and ended up cutting his finger.  _ Abuelita _ and  _ mami _ had fussed, but all the injury needed, physically, was to be cleaned and covered with a bandage.

Alex, though, couldn’t help but notice that the sudden pain from the knife helped him feel…  _ real _ , in a way that he hadn’t felt for a long time. He realized the feeling of “grounded,” and how the weight had disappeared for that single moment. 

Contrary to popular belief, Alex wasn’t stupid. He waited, and waited, and waited until everyone in the apartment was asleep before carefully searching out the pocket knife he had come to own at some point. Alex also knew better than to try on his wrists. Too obvious, no way he could ever hide it.

He thought for a minute as he sat on the floor, next to his bed on the side farthest from the door. Slowly, he pushed down his pajama pants and pulled up the left leg of his boxers, exposing the skin of his upper thigh. Alex hesitated one last time.

But he was desperate for  _ something _ . Anything.

So he took the knife to his skin, and the sensation- the pain- reached through the heaviness and the fog that had clung tight to him the past few months vanished for a single instant. Alex kept going, until there were cuts across both of his thighs, some creeping lower than others but none nearly close enough to be seen when he wore shorts. 

Alex had prepared for this, too; when he managed to stop, he had stolen toilet paper ready to press into the beads and lines of blood. Somewhere in his mind he realized (knew) that he could never go back. 

  
  


\---

  
  


He had never thought that he would be able to understand even a little bit of what Schneider, of all people, felt like, yet here Alex was.

The times he spent hurting himself (and Alex knew it was bad, okay, he knew it wasn’t a good thing) seemed to grow more and more frequent, and more and more varied. It wasn’t just the knife or his thighs, anymore. Scissors, a razorblade he had managed to clean and steal before it was thrown out; close to his hips, his upper arms. 

Before, he hadn’t been able to even remotely understand (on a personal level, that is) how Schneider could have broken eight years of sobriety, but now… Alex felt antsy a few hours after cutting. Going a few days without it was almost torture, after doing it for months.

(Alex  _ wasn’t _ an addict, it was  _ different. _ He wasn’t doing drugs, so he couldn’t be addicted.)

(Okay, maybe there was a  _ problem _ , but that didn’t make him an addict.)

But despite whatever baggage came with his coping mechanisms, Alex also had managed to keep the weight that followed him lighter than those first few weeks (months). Which meant he could keep pretending that he was okay. Whether that was for his or his family’s benefit, though, he really couldn’t tell anymore. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“Has Alex seemed…well,  _ weird _ … to you lately?” Penelope asked. Elena furrowed her brows.

“Maybe?” She replied. “He has been a little off for awhile now.” Her daughter bit her lip in worry, and she hurried to reassure her that everything was probably fine.

Penelope was relatively sure that it wasn’t drugs, considering what had gone down last time. But that didn’t mean something wasn’t wrong. Her son had been acting normal, she supposed… 

A thought hit her:  _ What if it’s just an act? _

So she watched. And waited. Which meant she had no idea how to react when Alex’s sleeve rode up as his arm moved just enough for her to see a mix of scars and cuts on her son’s upper arm.

It was as if she was frozen in that second. Alex asked if she was okay. Penelope told him yes because she sure as hell wasn’t going to talk about depression with her son with everyone else around. 

_ God, _ she thought,  _ how did I not see anything? How did I miss this? _

There were so many questions running through her brain, and she was surprisingly not falling into the trap of a panic attack, but she tactically retreated to the bathroom just in case.

_ How long? How often?  _

No- she had to think. Penelope couldn’t rush into this without a plan. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Alex heard three soft knocks on his door, then a just as soft “Alex?” from his  _ mami _ . That was all of a warning he got before she came in, closing the door behind her.

“ _ Papito _ ,” she started, with a strange look on her face, “we need to talk.”

He sat up on his bed as she sat down. Alex set his phone down next to him and tried to ignore the dread rising up in every bone of his body. He bit his lip, almost hard enough to draw blood, and it made him feel a little better during the awful pause before  _ mami _ spoke again.

“Do you remember,” She said carefully, “how- when I first told you and Elena about my depression and anxiety- I told you that if you ever felt anything like that we would be here for you?”

“Uh, I guess,” Alex mumbled. “But- I’ve never felt stuff like that.”

“Anxiety?”  _ Mami _ asked. He swallowed. “Yeah.”

She sighed, reaching out a hand. Alex grabbed it and felt her squeeze. “ _ Papito, _ I wasn’t just talking about anxiety. I was talking about depression, too.”

_ You can still save this, you can still save it- _ “I don’t have depression either.”

Another long pause.

“Alex,”  _ Mami _ said- sadly? “I saw your arm. Your sleeve rode up.”

He froze instantly. It was like the wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn’t move- couldn’t even speak.

“Tell me, honestly,” and there was a desperate tone in her voice, “how long?”

For a long moment, Alex couldn’t bring himself to speak. But  _ mami _ just waited patiently, with that expectant stare. He sighed before forcing out the words. “...A few months.” 

He somehow could tell that put her on the verge of tears, but she took a deep breath. “You- you need to see someone, you know that, right?”

There had been times when Alex had felt like bursting into tears for no reason these past few months- plus a couple memorable incidents where he had quietly done so- but they were nothing like this. He pressed his lips together; could feel himself shaking as his eyes watered against his will. He nodded, and  _ mami _ crawled over to Alex and held him while he silently cried the betraying tears.

“We don’t have to tell Elena, right?” he mumbled in a disgustingly wavering voice. “Please.”

She kissed his forehead and whispered to Alex. “Not right now, if you don’t want to.”

They sat together on his bed until Alex had cried himself out and the weight was almost overpowering.

_ Mami _ cleared her throat. “Alex,” she said, her words soft but firm. “You need to give me what you’ve been using to- to cut yourself,” and her voice definitely cracked on the end.

Alex felt paralyzed again, and he honestly wanted to tell her no. Tell her that he  _ needed _ them, that she  _ couldn’t _ take them away. He really, really wanted to, but something in the way she said “Alex,” for a second time destroyed the fight in him.

As much as he didn’t want her to take them away… Alex was tired of this cycle of “feel shitty, hurt, feel better, feel worse than the start.” He was sinking lower and lower, his coping mechanism helping less and less in fighting the weight that followed him. So instead of fighting her, Alex stood, grabbed the small plastic bag he had started using to hold his pocket knife, blades, and the small pair of scissors that he occasionally chose, and handed it to his  _ mami. _

“Anything else?”

He shook his head.

She hugged him again before she left his room; Alex laid on his bed numbly, unsure of what would happen next.  

  
  


\---

  
  


The atmosphere was definitely tense once Alex’s secret was (mostly) out. 

Judging by the way  _ abuelita _ was acting, she knew some of it.  _ Mami _ was trying to act normal. Elena, as Alex had requested, didn’t know anything- and had she been less focused on college preparations, she probably would have picked up more. As is, his sister seemed to sense the tension but said nothing of it.

_ Mami _ had quietly told him that she had scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist (or was it psychologist?) for next week. The days leading up to it felt like they flew by, as if they took no time at all. Alex wasn’t sure if he was ready for it- he had no idea what would happen, no way to guess what could. 

When it was finally the day of,  _ mami _ and Alex left the house under the pretense of her taking him to a friend’s. The details were hazy. He wasn’t really concerned with specifics right now, to be honest.

Apparently  _ mami _ had found the doctor through her therapy group leader, or something like that. All Alex knew was that it wasn’t Dr. Berkowitz (because you needed a special kind of medical degree to do therapy, he had learned). Right when they arrived at the office Alex was handed a clipboard with lots of papers that all had lots of questions. 

They all oddly fit what he had been feeling, the past few months, but having to answer “I feel this all of the time” was simultaneously awkward and terrifying for Alex. Not to mention having to answer “yes” to the questions asking if he had hurt himself on purpose before. It was weird, honestly- on some level, Alex had known  _ something _ was probably wrong, and that he wasn’t really okay, no matter how much he tried to deny it to himself; but to see it on a physical thing, inked out in black pen- that was something else entirely. 

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind (and tried to push out the itch that came from not cutting for almost a week now; scratching himself helped, but not much) and finished the questions on all of the sheets. Then more waiting, going by himself with a nurse for his height, weight, and stuff, waiting but in an almost office this time, and finally talking to the doctor.

She was nice, Alex supposed, but talking about what had been happening over the past few months was one of the hardest things he had ever done. He had to talk about how heavy he felt, and had to admit it was pretty much constant; how hurting himself helped, but only for a little (and barely managing the part about how he felt like he  _ needed _ it, and that this past week without his knife was almost worse than all of the others together, somehow).  _ Mami _ being called in at the end, trying not to cry.

_ You have depression, _ the doctor said. Her saying it made it real, as if before, Alex was trying to convince himself he was imagining it, and now he had no choice but to admit it was real. That he wasn’t okay. There was talk about therapy, and maybe antidepressants, and so many other things that flew over Alex’s head. He was reeling, even if it was hard to admit.

He and  _ mami _ went home, the drive back to the apartment practically silent. For the rest of the day, he stayed in his room; just sitting on the bed, exhaustion taking over at some point and lulling Alex to sleep.

Elena was the one that woke him up for dinner- and wouldn’t let him try to skip by claiming that he wasn’t hungry. Which meant Alex had no choice but to drag himself out of bed and to the table.  _ Mami, _ at least, wasn’t on eggshells around him.  _ Abuelita _ , Alex was pretty sure, didn’t know anything official and wasn’t different from usual. Elena looked at him strangely but was easily ignored.

Once dinner was over, Alex retreated back to his room. It was probably a good thing today was Friday, because trying to do even the smallest thing seemed impossible right now.

_ You have depression. Depression. Depression. _

The word circled through his head again and again as he had no energy to do anything but lay on the bed. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Just like when he was waiting for the first appointment, the days leading up to therapy seemed to happen way too fast. Alex found himself scratching his arms (and when he could, thighs) a lot. He was on edge, and he hated it.

The days and the hours dwindled- to be honest, Alex had expected to hate therapy, even just a little bit, for some reason. But it wasn’t… terrible? Talking about everything was still hard, but as the weeks and sessions passed talking also made it a little better. Better, but little enough that the word  _ antidepressants _ was thrown around again.

“In the end, it’s up to you,” Alex was told by so many people, especially  _ mami _ . (Who also said that they had helped her.)

“Okay,” he says eventually, “I’ll try it.”

Because Alex was learning how to feel better, but he wasn’t quite there.

  
  


\---

  
  


“I’m going to tell Elena,” Alex blurted out into the almost empty car on the way back from his therapy appointment.

_ Mami _ nodded calmly. “If that’s what you want to do, then okay.”

Alex had been thinking about it for awhile now, but if he was actually going to start taking meds- well, he would rather field questions now than later.

He waited until after dinner, because that would make for a really terrible atmosphere, but when he had gathered enough courage Alex knocks on his sister’s door. “Um,” he starts, and even to himself he sounds unsure, “I… kinda need to talk to you."

Elena’s face is shrouded with worry instantly. “I’m fine,” he reassures. (In his head, Alex adds,  _ mostly _ .) He sits awkwardly next to her on her bed after she tells him to; there’s too long of a pause, because he isn’t sure how to start.

“So,” Alex eventually leads with, “I… haven’t actually been at someone’s house every Friday.”

“ _ What _ .” Elena’s confusion mostly shows, and what doesn’t show is clear in her voice.

“Therapy,” he says before he can stop himself. 

His sister weighs his answer. “You’re in therapy?” She asks carefully.

Alex sighs before continuing. “Yeah. I- uh,” he clears his throat. “You know how  _ mami _ has depression?” Elena nods; he can already see the gears turning in her head. 

“...I have it too,” he finishes weakly.

It’s a solid minute before Elena responds; Alex can see her juggling questions, reactions, and trying to decide which is most appropriate.

“Can I hug you?” She decides on. He’s a little thrown but nods.

Afterwards, Alex tells her some (but not all) of what’s happened and that the reason he decided to tell her now was because he’s going to start taking meds. She smiles at him, and says that she loves him, and Alex feels so, so lucky.

  
  


\---

  
  


Therapy helps. Meds help. It’s closing on almost a year since his depression first started, now, and Alex is finally feeling somewhat okay again. He’s achieved some kind of normalcy, and every day is less and less of an act.

There are still bad days. He’s relapsed more than once. Alex still has pale lines that will follow him for a long time, if not most (or the rest) of his life. He still sometimes  _ craves _ the crutch he used to cling so tightly to.

One thing that depression has taught him, though, is there are better crutches. Friends, family- things more tangible, more reliable, more substantial. Alex thinks of tangible and he sees  _ abuelita _ ; recipes come to life and probably his favorite person in the world- the one he hides the best cookies with, does laundry with, and whose personality can outshine everyone else’s.

Alex thinks of reliable and he sees  _ mami _ ; from the first time she reminded him she would be there for him to each therapy appointment. She’s talking with someone who  _ gets _ it, because as much as his sister understands, she has anxiety and not depression, not this weight of sadness that barely feels like sadness. Reliable is  _ mami _ because  _ mami _ has and will always be there for him.

Alex thinks of substantial and he sees Elena; how they’ve grown closer than ever, and still fight but don’t really mean it because they’re brother and sister,  _ hermano y hermana _ . Elena is one person that’s worth a hundred, full of passion and ideas and drive. She takes pride in who she is and what she’s made of with no regrets.

Alex watches Elena walk across the gymnasium stage, grabbing her diploma amidst all of the loud cheers and he thinks,  _ I won, in all the ways that matter. _

**Author's Note:**

> this is somewhat, but not completely, drawn from my own experience with depression and self harm. idk i just really wanted an alex centric fic so i wrote one and accidentally but kinda on purpose made it angst lmao (dont worry, i also have less angsty odaat fic ideas)
> 
> edit: i now have a odaat sideblog on tumblr ([@onegay-and-a-bi](https://onegay-and-a-bi.tumblr.com))


End file.
